I keep hoping that, to paraphrase an old saying, you can take John Woo out of Hong Kong, but you can't take Hong Kong out of John Woo. Unfortunately, Broken Arrow doesn't bode well for my flagging optimism. The second American film (after Hard Target) by the great Hong Kong action director is a competent but underwhelming entry in the "loony terrorist vs. harried hero on (check one) plane, train, bus, ship, alternative form of energy-efficient transportation" genre. The stunts are explosive; the stakes high (two purloined nuclear missiles); and a completely innocent bystander is left to stir-fry in a campfire. Nothing in this battle royal between a renegade bomber pilot (John Travolta) and his earnest co-pilot (Christian Slater), however, would convince a first-timer that Woo is one of cinema's great choreographers of mass mayhem.

Working on a relatively small canvas--Travolta and his shrinking crew arrayed against Slater and his reluctant, accidental helpmate, park ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis)--Woo sacrifices the stuntmen-of-thousands set pieces that make The Killer, Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow so breathtaking. Even Woo's signature image of a man leaping/falling, arms extended, gun in each hand, blazing away in slow motion looks tired when it's a weak hitter like Slater instead of the incomparable Chow Yun-Fat, star of Woo's best Hong Kong features. The high-speed stunts on a runaway train are sharply executed but don't exceed anything in Under Siege 2.

Travolta, relishing the villain's freedom to steal scenes, enlivens the screen every time his brush-top haircut rises above the horizon line. Too bad that his every quip and quirk has been overexposed in the massive publicity campaign; the producers unwisely held nothing back. (Travolta ought to win an Academy Award for Best Performance in a Trailer). On the plus side, Mathis' character convincingly combines common-sense fear and some surprising mental and physical resources under pressure. Even better, four, count 'em four, helicopters go up (or is that "down"?) in flames--blowed up real good. You won't see that in Bed of Roses.

Broken Arrow (R; 118 min.), directed by John Woo, written by Graham Yost, photographed by Peter Levy and starring John Travolta, Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.